Missed patches or over feed?

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Hello all

Firstly I appreciate you reading this and any advice or help you may offer.
I am a gardening amateur since we have recently moved into a house with a garden from an apartment. The lawn was looking a bit shabby after the winter so I went about reviving it. It appeared a bit compacted so I went through the arduous task of hollow tinning it manually. There were a fair amount of weeds and moss and not knowing any better I thought it best to apply Evergreen 4 in 1, after all if it did what it said on the tin then I would be sorted. Further reading suggest that this is probably not the best process to follow i.e. weed and feed separately.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did apply the said product On the whole the lawn did start growing rapidly, got a lot greener and much thicker. I am mowing to 40mm each week as it is growing so fast that staying within the one third guidelines for mowing I would have to mow every 3 days.

I have however started to notice what I think are yellow patches. Looking on other forums some recon these are just lighter patches that have been missed when applying the product, but if I look carefully and closely there are definite yellow blades of grass.

If you look at the included pictures, you may say that the yellow patches follow distinct lines but I think this is emphasised by the mowing yesterday, with a mower that has a roller. I have tried to take a few close ups of the yellow patches for comparison.

My question really is to the experts, would you say that I have missed these patches or have I over applied the product or the included herbicide had an adverse affect in the grass.

Either way, any recommendations on a resolution would be appreciated. I thought if it were missed patches, perhaps I could apply a plain lawn fertiliser after a 6 - 8 week period as to avoid any over feeding. If it had been over fed then obviously not applying anything further is probably the way to go with perhaps over watering the yellow patches.

I thought maybe do a patch test, select two smaller patches, apply product to one and then just water the other one while observing the lawn on the whole.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Geoff

 

Yes, That's definitely striping caused by poor application of fertiliser. The yellow bits are the bits you missed.
It is extremely common, especially when try to spread products by hand, using an "in-built" spreader, or a drop-spreader.

I wouldn't recommend applying fertiliser to the "patch it up". Just keep it well watered and the colour will come back more evenly eventually.

Next time, don't use a feed with such a high-nitrogen content, (any green up in 7-days, a quick-fix product, or any "combi" product I generally don't recommend). Go for something a lot longer lasting and gentler. Even something like growmore applied every six weeks would generally be better for the grass than drugging it with nitrogen.

Hope this helps.

Kris

 

Many thanks for your reply and help Kris!

Glad it is extremely common, thought that the beer I had before applying had an adverse effect!. I was actually going to get a drop spreader as thought I may miss spots but was talked out of it as it is such a small lawn!

So in your opinion, with the excess nitrogen in the product used the lawn has had enough feeding for a while. How long would you suggest waiting (you say "next time") until looking at starting with something like growmore applied every six weeks and do you think this is necessary? It has been about 5 weeks since applying the Complete 4 in 1 how long would you think the effects of something like that last?

Once again many thanks for your time in reading and replying, I guess this is another case of live and learn for me!

Regards

Geoff

 

What you do with your lawn and how you feed it really depends on what you want to get from it. Many folk never feed their lawns at all, and although they don't "look" great, serve their purpose perfectly well. However if you want a really lovely piece of green turf, then regular feeding is necessary.
Personally, my recommended program for a great looking lawn throughout the year is a good feed every two months, but then I use professional products. High-nitrogen weed-n-feeds don't even last nearly that long, but it does depend on watering, soil conditions and the grass.
I can't really advise specifically on your lawn, but I can say that most DIY lawn problems occur through over feeding and impatience, so if in doubt, just wait and leave it alone. It will come through on it's own!

 

Just in case not something you know:

If you apply with a "spreader" - e.g. the type that you push - if you apply 1/2 the rate North-South and the other half East-West (or back-front and side-to-side) then that will help prevent any missed bits.

If you can apply 1/4rd on each "pass" then you can do North-South and East-West but also go over it all again overlapping 1/2 the previous row. So you make your first strip, turn around at the end, and then instead of running in the wheel tracks you overlap half the width.

If you get a decent sized plastic sheet, for example a compost bag opened out to make a sheet, and then run the spreader over if (careful to try to have exactly the same start/end position each pass) a number of times - at least 10, but if you like 20 or 30 - then measure the length / width of the area covered, tip the fertilizer off the sheet into a container that you can weigh, then you can work out how much was applied on a single pass, per unit area. Then you know how many "passes" you have to make, and whether you can do 2 or 4 passes, or more.

I have a really cheap & nasty spreader that needs 20 passes to get the right rate of grass seed application. Its a pain in the proverbial to seed with, but I've never had the results look the least bit "uneven"

 

There are many types of spreader that you "push". Drop spreader's, (i.e. cheap, nasty ones) are the main problem here in that it is really difficult to stay in a straight line without overlapping your previous pass, and if you stop they often just dump a load of fertiliser in one place.

Broadcast spreaders are much better in this regard and do a much better job, but are expensive. This is why, unless you've got an entire afternoon to spare, it is often cheaper in the long run to get your lawn fed professionally!

 

I've got both, but I find it quite difficult to work out how "wide" my broadcast spreader has spread ... is there a trick to that?

 

A keen eye and practice.

Or if you want to be scientific, little pots!
http://pesticidestewardship.org/calibration/Pages/RotarySpreader.aspx